Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@guardian.co.tt

Fam­i­lies across Madras, St He­le­na, Ca­roni, and St Au­gus­tine are strug­gling to re­cov­er af­ter in­tense rain­fall trig­gered se­vere flood­ing that en­gulfed homes in up to four feet of wa­ter.

Caught off guard so ear­ly in the rainy sea­son, res­i­dents now face the task of clear­ing out wa­ter­logged fur­ni­ture, ru­ined ap­pli­ances, and school sup­plies—many of which were still be­ing paid for.

As flood­wa­ters slow­ly re­cede, dam­aged ap­pli­ances, wa­ter­logged school sup­plies, and de­stroyed per­son­al be­long­ings now line the streets in sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ties, and res­i­dents be­gin the slow, painful process of clean­ing up.

Lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials have been work­ing along­side af­fect­ed fam­i­lies.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Dook­iesingh Street, St Au­gus­tine, where more than 20 homes were af­fect­ed.

For res­i­dent Ro­ma Sookhai and her fam­i­ly, the flood left noth­ing un­touched and noth­ing sal­vage­able.

“This is the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion un­der­neath my mum’s house and ours,” she said, point­ing to the wa­ter­logged re­mains of their be­long­ings. “We lost every­thing. Every sin­gle thing.”

Sookhai’s moth­er, who is phys­i­cal­ly dis­abled and lives down­stairs, lost her fridges, wash­ing ma­chine, mi­crowave, walk­er, and wheel­chair, many of which were still be­ing paid off.

“She couldn’t even move on her own. When the wa­ter start­ed com­ing in, we had just enough time to get to her,” Sookhai re­called, her voice heavy with emo­tion.

“Then the wa­ter start­ed spray­ing in from every­where. We couldn’t see any­thing.”

By around 3 am, the fam­i­ly was forced to flee.

“I had to grab my ba­by and run. That was it. We lost every­thing. Chil­dren’s books and school sup­plies—all gone. But thank God we’re alive. That’s what mat­ters most.”

She likened the flood­ing to the dis­as­trous 2018 event, on­ly worse.

“This one hit the cake. It re­al­ly did. We nev­er ex­pect­ed it to be like this. Not at all,” she said.

Over in Madras Road, res­i­dents al­so faced wa­ter lev­els rang­ing from one to three feet. The area, known for its flood-prone na­ture, saw homes sub­merged and be­long­ings ru­ined.

Randy Ram­per­sad, of Dook­iesingh Street, stood among the soaked re­mains of his house­hold items, try­ing to make sense of it all.

“Right now, we’re just try­ing to clean up af­ter the flood,” he said.

“The wa­ter went down a lit­tle bit, so we’re try­ing to see how much we can sal­vage and get back to nor­mal.”

While not his first flood ex­pe­ri­ence, Ram­per­sad said this one came ear­li­er and with more in­ten­si­ty.

“Nor­mal­ly, flood­ing comes lat­er in the sea­son—Oc­to­ber or No­vem­ber. This one came high, high­er than be­fore,” he said. “Most of the items here are made of MDF and soft ma­te­ri­als. Once wa­ter gets in, that’s it—every­thing swells and mash­es up.”

He added, “Right now, I don’t even know the full dam­age yet. But when I ar­rived, the wa­ter was re­al high.”

Ron­nie Mathu­ra, an­oth­er res­i­dent of Dook­iesingh Street, echoed a sim­i­lar shock.

“We ex­pect­ed some wa­ter, but not this bad,” he said. “It’s been a long time since it’s reached like this. Feels like 2018 all over again.”

Mathu­ra, who op­er­ates a home-based class­room, es­ti­mates his loss­es at around $70,000.

“My wash­ing ma­chine is gone. And all the books and ma­te­ri­als from the class­room—just de­stroyed. I don’t even think we’ll get com­pen­sat­ed for that,” he said.

Bal­ki Sinanan, al­so of Dook­iesingh Street, is a land­scap­er who lost most of his work tools to the flood.

“We lost a lot. I didn’t have a prop­er place to move things in time—wash­ing ma­chine, brush cut­ters, blow­ers, all gone,” he said.

Sinanan and his fam­i­ly evac­u­at­ed to a rel­a­tive’s home in El Do­ra­do. When they re­turned, the wa­ter was still high.

“We thought we could come back and start clean­ing, but it’s not like that. We have to wait for the wa­ter to go all the way down be­fore we can be­gin pump­ing and clean­ing,” he said. “Right now, we’re just sur­viv­ing and try­ing to re­build.”

Coun­cil­lor for St Au­gus­tine South/Pi­ar­co/St He­le­na Richard Ram­per­sad said that as­sess­ments are con­tin­u­ing, but they have to wait un­til the wa­ter lev­el re­cedes to give an ex­act es­ti­mate of the loss­es of those af­fect­ed.

He added at this mo­ment he and his team are col­lect­ing da­ta from the af­fect­ed res­i­dents which will be sent to the Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion Dis­as­ter Man­age­ment Unit and then sent to the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices.

Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen could not be reached for com­ment.